By Rick Pfeiffer
Niagara Gazette
NIAGARA FALLS —
The prime suspect in the robbery of a Falls American Legion Post is behind bars, thanks to the help of an alert Gazette reader.
Just before 2 p.m. Saturday, cops caught up with Angelo Bauer outside his mother’s home and charged him with the July 4 robbery of the American Legion Cadille Post 1664 in the City Market. Officers were led to Bauer by a tip call from a neighbor.
“The caller said they saw (the story and Bauer’s picture) in the paper,” Falls Police Detective Lt. Michael Trane.
Detectives had been looking for Bauer for about a week, after he was identified by the post commander in a photo array and surveillance cameras at the post showed him grabbing money from a cash register drawer there.
Commander Joe Rizzotto expressed pleasure with Bauer’s arrest.
“They nailed him right away (after the tip call),” he said. “So I guess the picture in the paper worked.”
Earlier in the week, Rizzotto had warned that police would find Bauer.
“Tell him we’re comin’ for him. Tell him we’re comin’ for him,” Rizzotto said.
Bauer had walked into the Cadille Post late in the evening of July 4, while Rizzotto was behind the bar, and spun a tale of being a wounded combat veteran of the Iraq war.
“He kind of looked like the brother of one of our members,” Rizzotto said. “He even pointed to scars over is eyes that he said were shrapnel wounds.”
Later, Rizzotto found out how Bauer, 39, with a a lengthy rap sheet for similar crimes, got those scars.
“It turns out (Bauer) was stealing from Tops in April and as he tried to run away, he got tackled by a security guard. That’s how he got the scars,” Rizzotto said. “Everything out of his mouth that night was a lie.”
Bauer was one of just three patrons in the post that night and he told Rizzotto a woeful tale about how he had no money. Because it was the holiday and Rizzotto thought Bauer was a vet, he bought him a few beers.
At closing time, Rizzotto said he placed the cash drawer from the post register on the bar and then turned his back. Bauer reached over, grabbed about $100 and walked out the door of the post. Rizzotto chased after him but Bauer took off running toward 19th Street.
“We had called him a cab and a LaSalle cab was just pulling up,” Rizzotto said. “I told the cabbie, go pick him up and bring him back here. But instead, the (cabbie) picked him up and drove him to Ferry and 19th.”
The crime was caught on tape by post surveillance cameras. The cameras also caught Bauer taking $3 from two other patrons in the post that night and rummaging through a coin canister for the post’s cadet corps.
Bauer will be arraigned on a petit larceny charged in Falls City Court later today.
